Struggling to keep to budget

[Marine-RX179]

You won't be able to upgrade on the same socket anyway as both of Intels current sockets will be dead next year and replaced with new ones. 1156 (i5) is EOL Q1 2011 followed by 1366 (i7) in Q3.

Don't think it matters...if his next upgrading in 3 years time, he should be changing motherboard along with the CPU anyway.

People thinks AMD got a better upgrade path because the AMD Bullozor being released next year is AM3 socket, therefore it would be compatable with the current boards. But the truth is nobody know for sure if that really is the case, and if AMD Bullozor really can run on the current boards, I doubt it would perform too well on 7xx/8xx chipset boards...at least it will fall short on the overclocking department.

 

[wilko49]

i5 750 is great. it will last a good while. your current spec needs dual channel RAM though, not triple channel (as riggy said). You could try re-using your old case. You only need the UD5 if you are planning to Crossfire/SLI, otherwise get one of the cheaper models. That should bring you back into budget.

 

[Riggy]

i5 750 is great. it will last a good while. your current spec needs dual channel RAM though, not triple channel (as riggy said). You could try re-using your old case. You only need the UD5 if you are planning to Crossfire/SLI, otherwise get one of the cheaper models. That should bring you back into budget.

I can't use my old case as it's a Dell one, and we all know what Dell are like with their mobo's and cases.

I mean it isn't a set in stone budget, I can go over, it'll just take me longer to get the set up. Currently buying PC's and selling the parts for profit, might come sooner if I can keep finding good enough PC's to break down that are cheap enough.

I've decided that I will be going for an i5 build and attempt to overclock it, that way it'll last me a good few years. Unless I break it Though I won't be messing with any voltage settings, I'm not taking that risk as a beginner.

 

[Frozennova]

ive had a copy of xp home oem from a fujitsu computer from 2002 that ive used successfully countless times on 3 different pcs (all of these reside in the same household, im not just installing it anywhere...).

This is still in breach of licensing as OEM licenses supplied with pre-built systems are tied to the motherboard